Abstract: Our lab has been designing and building exoskeleton-based
therapeutic robots for stroke and spinal cord injury rehabilitation, and
testing these devices, along with modified commercial devices, in the clinical
domain for the past five years. In this talk, I will present an overview of our
efforts to date. I will highlight the design and implementation of the
RiceWrist device for upper extremity rehabilitation. Then, I will discuss
robotic measures of motor impairment and how these measures can be used to
ensure clinical relevance of robotic rehabilitation systems. Specifically, we
analyze the correlations between four clinical measures (Fugl-Meyer upper
extremity scale, Motor Activity Log, Action Research Arm Test and Jebsen-Taylor
Hand Function Test) and four robotic measures (smoothness of movement,
trajectory error, average number of target hits per minute and mean tangential
speed), used to assess motor recovery. Data were gathered as part of a hybrid robotic
and traditional upper extremity rehabilitation program for nine stroke
patients. Smoothness of movement and trajectory error, temporally and spatially
normalized measures of movement quality defined for point-to-point movements,
were found to have significant moderate to strong correlations with all four of
the clinical measures. The strong correlations suggest that smoothness of
movement and trajectory error may be used to compare outcomes of different
rehabilitation protocols and devices effectively, provide improved resolution
for tracking patient progress compared to only pre- and post-treatment
measurements, enable accurate adaptation of therapy based on patient progress,
and deliver immediate and useful feedback to the patient and therapist.
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